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What has been conspicuously lacking in most of the ‘debate’ around the issue is the fact that member states are seeking to evade or fudge their legal responsibilities, as well as a more principled debate about what being an EU member state should mean on an ideological level.

Despite the fact that the Brussels Agreement and the November election is a first step towards the bridging of differences between Kosovo on the one hand and Kosovo Serbs and Serbia on the other, the process of integration of Serbs into the Kosovan system will require time, good will on all sides and, above all, legal and political clarity.

Framing the position of Romani minorities in terms of social exclusion usually remains undisputed. It is also not questioned that social exclusion sometimes alludes that Romani minorities are themselves to blame for their position and now the wider society as their saviours has to work out how to integrate them.

While it is still too early to speculate about the practical implications of this decree, its adoption together with recent plans to grant citizenship to foreign investors will without doubt transform the conception and configuration of Albanian citizenship and can potentially impact upon the already complex citizenship constellations in the region.

Many observers have drawn parallels between the Gezi protests and the Arab Spring mobilisations, Occupy protests, and the crisis mobilisations in Southern Europe. But the protests in Turkey differ from these in certain respects. Unlike the Arab Spring mobilisations, they are not directed against the very foundations of an autocratic regime. They are also not driven by economic grievances. Yet what the Gezi protests have in common with these is the increasing public conviction in the power of protest. The most obvious evidence is the politicisation of the previously un-politicised. Both the deep engagement of the 90s generation and the participation of the people with no activist record are unusual in Turkey’s map of contentious politics.

While the divisions in civil society tend to reflect those in the political sphere, the events of the past several weeks could be cause for cautious optimism. Each ‘wing’ of the civil society might make a difference in its own domain (entity or canton). In order to do this, they need to sustain this level of activism, not only via protests, but through continuous organisation, awareness-raising campaigns and advocacy. It is through such activism that they can hope to make politicians in their own sub-units more accountable. In the circumstances facing Bosnian citizenry, democratisation of the state must start at the local and entity (or cantonal) level.

Regardless of the context-specific background of Skopje’s urban battles, there is a trans-national story of urban activism to be told, from Istanbul to London, in particular targeting undemocratic practices of usurpation of public/green spaces either by authoritarian leaders or private investors. A wave of neo-conservative politics, tendencies of desecularization, corruption, control over media and growing social and economic gaps actually form the background of public discontent, creative activism and urban sociality and cross-ethnic solidarity. Mapping a new historical narrative onto the capital’s face has come at the cost of hundreds of millions of Euros of public money (official figures are at 208 million) and without a wider public debate and transparent decision-making. Political elites seem to willingly overlook the fact that “the past cannot give us what the future has failed to deliver”.

The amendments still did not manage to overcome certain limitations of the previous text of the law. Even following the amendments, the entitlements for facilitated naturalization based on ethnic membership may still be in breach of the non-discrimination principle of the European Convention on Nationality, while certain legal practitioners criticize the law on the grounds that it is technically poorly written which leaves opportunities for arbitrary interpretations of certain sections of the law.